The Kindlier Appearance of Things
by sequestial
Summary: And this is why, in self-defense - but it has probably always been so - so much that’s divine mingles with what’s human in your clear face. -Draco finds it hard to sleep at night. Not slash. Post-HBP, DH-


**The Kindlier Appearance of Things**

Draco remembered seeing his blood and dirty toilet water mixing together on the tiled bathroom floor and Potter's voice, as he shakily knelt down beside him, gasping out, "No – I didn't –"

_Too late_, he thought bitterly._ Too bloody late_. Not when the too fluids were so coalesced that they were inextricable, and certainly not when his tears had not reached evaporation point, the grime streaks like perpetual tracks in the Forbidden Forest.

Draco vaguely remembered Moaning Myrtle screaming, "MURDER! MURDER IN THE BATHROOM! MURDER!"

_But I'm not_. He was uncertain of whether he actually uttered that phrase because he saw flashes of Snape over him, and it was so painful that he lost himself in it so it didn't hurt anymore but he wondered if it was a hallucination when he saw the white flash of his father's hair and his mother's tears and why couldn't he feel his own anymore but there was a great rush of joy when he felt the burn of his mark and it was excruciating all the same when he but he couldn't remember he couldn't remember he couldn't see he-

-

'What,' spat Snape, 'what were you _thinking_?'

The silence was great, the silence was deafening, the silence was really non-existent, but then why did it buzz in his ears?

Draco remembered the blood but he could not remember the Snape one year before ever becoming the Snape standing in front of him. It was as if, in his greasy metamorphosis of life, he had skipped a stage and now, immediately, stood glaring at him, blocking his view of Dumbledore's portrait. He was sorry, he didn't know what he was supposed to have done had he time to do it again, but the Dumbledore of now was sleeping serenely and was not a dead broken figurine at the foot of the tower, but it wasn't Draco's fault, it wasn't his fault, because he didn't-

'Draco, pay attention!' barked Snape, looking quite disturbed and angered by his lack of concentration. But it wasn't really his fault; he hadn't slept in a while.

'I-' it was necessary to wet his cracked lips before speaking. 'I couldn't.'

'Draco.' The Snape of now walked toward him. 'It is necessary. If you do not Crucio your classmates, the Carrows will suspect your conviction and it is easy to imagine what will happen as a consequence.'

A shiver ran passed him, and he could see the ghost of himself staring from the opposite side of the room and again he looked at the portrait of Dumbledore. He envisioned a destroyed marionette and, like so many times before in the past year, replaced it with his own and that of his parents. But the terror that had existed once was gone, replaced by a yearning for sleep for peace for-

'Just because you've killed, just because you've maimed and harmed others before doesn't mean that it makes it easier for me!'

Snape started at this harsh outburst. Draco was too. In no way did Snape, the one who tried to protect him the one who tried to help him, deserve this indictment upon his judgment. But then again, he had only ever tried. Never done.

Draco remembered that day when Potter had used that spell to harm him. He remember seeing his skin peel open, peel apart as easily as parchment did after being soaked in ink or water. Red ink, was what his blood had look liked. He had never imagined himself so pale.

Snape should have let him die that day. No. Snape had only ever tried with him. It was always Potter he had truly protected.

Snape stared at him long and hard. 'Good day Mister Malfoy.' He finally said.

Draco hardly knew what to feel as he waited for the spiraling stairs to descend. Before he had left the room, he had noticed the empty black canvas of Dumbledore's portrait. He could never imagine Snape disappearing from his life like that, such a constant presence in his life that he was.

In no way was this a goodbye.

But it was the last time he and Snape ever spoke face to face.

For a time afterward, he often, belatedly, wondered why the portrait had hung there, right behind the professor's desk. Why had it not been burned, he thought?

-

And it's amazing how they can control who you are and change completely – and utterly – who you want to be. They can alter the way you think but it is alright, because you slowly adapt yourself to their values anyway, the idea of what it takes to synthesize that decent and respectable future. So stop it. Stop crying (or I imagine you to be right now, what else would you do in the face of sleep and nightmares?): why do you feel so sorry for yourself? You are no longer a child. You accepted it all and then you tried to push them away, yes, you did push them away, subconsciously at least. You pushed me away when I was trying to help. You say that they don't understand, that I don't understand, but what do you know? You are not yet a man either. You brought it upon yourself and there is no one else to blame. There was a choice to be taken, many choices in fact, but you wanted to be blind to it so you didn't have to handle the consequences. So that it all I am going to think and it is a pity you cannot hear me, so you will never learn. You disgust me, such a child who is not a man and yet a man who is still a child.

Children are innocents because they may never see it all, despite what they think. They would be divine.

[*And this is why, in self-defense (but it has probably always been so) so much that's divine mingles with what's human in your clear face.]

* (Kafka – in a letter to Milena p. 194)


End file.
